Give the Gift of GRIT History

I know that plenty of you remember the good old days when GRIT was still a newspaper. Many of you have written, or called to let us know that you were once a GRIT news boy or girl. Some of you even credit your years selling GRIT with some level of your success in business and life in general. Robin Van Auken’s latest book: Sunday GRIT: A Newspaper Legacy pays tribute to GRIT’s founder, Dietrick Lamade, and the incredible journalistic legacy that is GRIT, which is alive and well today.

Sunday GRIT’s 136 pages are packed with details on GRIT’s amazing legacy, starting with the purchase of the struggling newspaper supplement and its evolution into a national periodical with more than a million copies in circulation.

While the story itself is fascinating to me, I was also mesmerized by all the historic photos, advertisements and cartoons that were reproduced in Van Auken’s book. Did you know that one successful marketing campaign for GRIT involved posters that portrayed frog-like caricatures in unlikely poses, along with quirky text that seldom made sense? Or women’s silk stockings were only 69 cents a pair in the 1930s? Did you know that Sylvania unveiled the Blue Dot flashcube in 1966 … to the great delight of amateur photographers around the world? All of this and more is part of GRIT’s rich 126-year-old history … and all of it is chronicled in Sunday GRIT: A Newspaper Legacy.

This book makes a perfect gift for any GRIT fan … you can wrap it in a cool reproduction GRITbag for the former GRIT carrier on your Christmas list. You can find both the book and the bag at our online store.

Hank Will raises hair sheep, heritage cattle and many varieties of open-pollinated corn with his wife, Karen, on their rural Osage County, Kansas farm. His home life is a perfect complement to his professional life as editor in chief at GRIT and Capper's Farmer magazines. Connect with him on Google+.

Live The Good Life with GRIT!

At GRIT, we have a tradition of respecting the land that sustains rural America. That's why we want you to save money and trees by subscribing to GRIT through our automatic renewal savings plan. By paying now with a credit card, you save an additional $6 and get 6 issues of GRIT for only $16.95 (USA only).